Fiction
1) The Red & The Black by Stendhal - A young literary scholar falls in love with his employer's wife, and then falls in love with another employer's daughter. I love the book because of the drive toward authenticity amidst petty capitalist attitudes. As a political novel, although written in 1830, nearly all of it can be applied to today, and, specifically, to me.
2) Room by Emma Donague - This was a surprise Xmas gift, and I fell in love with it immediately; in fact, I read it in a span of two days. I cannot really give away anything of the plot, for fear of ruining the experience. It was a hauntingly beautiful novel that I will never forget.
3) The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen - This was a hilarious, cynical book about an old, neurotic matriarch desperately trying to coerce her dysfunctional family to get together for Christmas. I loved it.
4) A Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - A very short account of a murder told in reverse. When it is finally laid bare, it is a sheer spectacle to behold. I was not expecting such a violent conclusion.
5) In the Beauty of the Lilies by John Updike - I remember the book more for Updike's enjoyably indulgent prose (remember, I was an English major) than its substance, but I did find the theological debates between characters and points of view quite interesting.
6) One Hundred Years of Solitude by GGM - This was a fast and engrossing read, but keeping track of the characters was somewhat difficult (coming from someone who read Russian novels for fun), probably because names of matriarchs and patriarchs are repeated in subsequent generations. Much like Island by Aldous Huxley without the LSD, it is about a small town slowly getting taken over by surrounding territories, populated with lively characters who have a lot of sex.
7) The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover - A Ragnarok between an ossified religious worldview, and the harsh realities of the third world in the sixties. It was a sheer pleasure to anticipate the deranged preacher's demise.
8) The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson - I finished this book a few weeks ago, and have just started The Girl Who Played With Fire. It isn't much of an intellectual read by any stretch, but it does contain some history and economics to justify itself. It's a fairly decent story that reminded me of Clue, and it has a very good cast of characters. Too bad Lisbeth Salander, the real star of the series, doesn't show up until halfway through the book.
9) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling - This is my favorite book in the series. One of my friends persuaded (forced) me to finish it (Goblet of Fire is the last one I read, and that was years ago). This is the book with Professor Umbridge, the juvenile version of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor, and she turns Hogwarts into a totalitarian dystopia.
10) Out by Natsuo Kirino - I embarked on a quest for Japanese crime stories for a friend, but ended up finding something for myself instead. A group of women who work the night shift at a package lunch factory conspire to murder one of their abusive husbands. If you are looking for a glimpse into the lives of ordinary Japanese women, or are looking for a seriously violent novel, this is it.
Nonfiction
1) Being & Nothingness by JP Sartre - I identify as an Existentialist; I got a TON out of this book.
2) Capital vol 1 by Karl Marx - I was compelled to read Capital because of my chronic unemployment, my swiftly waning confidence in capitalism, and my support of Occupy Wall Street. Reading Capital was difficult, but, like Being & Nothingness, I was greatly rewarded for my persistence.
3) The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir - The back of the book claims that she pissed a lot of men off, but I'm not one of them. I really enjoyed it.
4) Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter - Thank you Richard Hofstadter for explaining how America got to be so devoid of intellectual culture, and for so beautifully illuminating the internal conflict of the intellectual between conformity and alienation.
5) Discipline & Punish by Michel Foucault - This book is more than just about the rise of the prison; it is about power, its structures, and how it operates, not only upon prisoners, but also greater society.
6) The Economics of Good & Evil by Tomas Sedlacek - I have been increasingly pressured to begin reading about economics, and so I chose this little book. Sedlacek presents economics and its history in a context to which my political/philosophical/literary brain can easily relate. I may read Adam Smith (whom Marx quoted extensively in Capital) and Keynes next year.
7) God: A Biography by Jack Miles - After reading Walter Brueggemmann last year, I found this little book that approached the Old Testament precisely from a perspective that closely matched mine. God: A Biography approached the Old Testament from a literary perspective and attempted to construct God as a full character, as a subject. Because of this book, I have a much greater respect for the Old Testament than I had previously.
8) The Savage City by TJ English - I saw the author appear on The Daily Show, and decided that I should read this book. It turned out that I made a good decision: English deconstructs the power structure of the police department and--to borrow from Foucault--its illegalities between the 60s and 70s. The book converged three vantage points to tell a complete story: That of George Whitmore, an unfortunate bystander devoured by the machine; a corrupt cop; and a Black Panther member.
9) Phenomenology of Mind by Georg W.F. Hegel - *DISCLAIMER*: I only understood about half of this book, but what I did understand, I really liked. What I did understand was about the synthesis of knowledge in the mind, but the rest of it was about the existence of Absolute Knowledge, and I had absolutely no idea what he was trying to say on that point (pun sort of intended).
10) Making Our Democracy Work by Justice Steven Breyer - I really like Steven Breyer as a SC Justice. In MODW, Breyer compares and contrasts what he considers--for lack of a better term--consequentialism/pragmatism with Originalism (Antonin Scalia's constitutional hermeneutic framework), while attempting to explain on a basic level what the SCOTUS actually does. While I was already familiar with much of what Justice Breyer had to say, it still proved to be worth my time.
